OK, i wanna share with you my own experience. (be patient with my English, i am from far away )
I am from Balkan Region, and as some of you may know it was hell here from 92-95, anyway, for 1 whole year i lived and survived in a city of 50 000- 60 000 residents WITHOUT: electricity, fuel,running water,real food distribution, or distribution of any goods, or any kind of organized law or government.The city was surrounded for 1 year and in that city actually it was SHTF situation.

We did not have organized army or police force, there was groups of defenders, actually anybody who had a gun, fight for his own house and his own family.

Some of us was better prepared, but most of families had food for couple of days, some of us had pistol, few owned AK-47 when all started.

Anyway, after one month or two, gangs started with their nasty job,hospital looked like butchery, police force vanished, 80 percent of hospital staff gone home.
I was lucky, my family was big in that time (15 members in one big house, 5-6 pistols, 3 Kalashnikov s) so we lived and survived, most of us.

I remember US Air force dropped MRE every 10 days (god bless USA for that) as help for surrounded city, it just was not enough.Some of houses had little gardens with some vegetables, most did not.
After three months rumors started abouth first deaths from starvation,deaths from low temperatures, we stripped every door , window frame from abandoned houses for heating, i burned all my own furniture for heating, lot of people died from diseases, mostly from bad water (two of my family members), we used rain water for drink, several times i ate pigeons, once i ate rat.
Money did not worth sh..
we traded things, black market worked, few examples: for 1 corned beef can you could have woman for couple of hours(sounds bad, but it was reality) i remember, most of that womans were just desperate mothers, candles, lighters,antibiotics,fuel,batteries, rifle ammo and of course food, we fight like animals for that.
In situation like that lot of things change, most of people turned to monsters, it was ugly.
Strength was in the numbers, if you were alone in the house, you ve been probably robbed and killed, no matter how well armed.

Anyway, war ended, again thanks to America (and again god bless USA for that)
It is not important witch side had right in that war.
It was almost 20 years ago, but believe me, for me it was just like yesterday, i remember everything, and i think i learned a lot.
Me and my family are prepared now,i am well armed, stocked and educated.
It is not important what going to happen, earthquake,war, tsunami,aliens terrorists, important thing is that something gonna be.
And from my expirience, you can not survive alone, strength is in the numbers, be close with your family, prepare with them, choose your friends wisely and prepare with them too.

Unless the government issues an official evacuation order, the vast majority of survivalists will never actually bug out.

With the exception hurricanes, it is almost impossible to have specific warning before hand. And even with hurricanes, the government hesitates to issue a warning that later proves unnecessary--they don't want to be accused of "crying wolf" and then people ignoring all future warns.

You won't bug out before the event, because leaving means loosing everything you don't take with you, even if you are right. You'll be walking away from your home, your big-screen TV, the xbox and the wii, all the tools in your garage, all the food in your pantry and fridge, your other vehicles and so on and so forth.

Then there are ALL the human relationships you'll be walking away from. Leaving friends, any family behind forever. And worst of all, your school-work or job. You will almost certainly be fired if you are wrong; you will be ridiculed if you are a teenager, and you will be hopelessly behind if you are a collegiate or grad student, thus permanently damaging your career. And most people, even when highly motivated, cannot simply turn their backs on their entire life, and face the unknown with only a backpack.

It's easier just to stay in place "one more day," so you can "wait and see" if it really gets that bad.....

On the other hand, you won't bug out after the collapse, regardless. The roads will be hopelessly choked with hundreds of millions of fleeing refugees, who panicked and leapt into their cars with little forethought, other than to bring some crackers and a pistol. Once they get into traffic, they will idle in a hopeless traffic jam until the car runs out of gas. At that point, they will get out and start walking. Eventually, someone decides to commandeer a vehicle that still has gas in it, and that's when the shooting starts.

Don't join that crowd.

So maybe you'll try to find a back road to your bug-out sanctuary. But it turns out there's no longer any such thing as a "back road," as every single driver who avoided the jams on the interstate now gets in line to get on any road leaving the cities. And outside the metropolis, the jamming starts to form around every exit with a gas station or a walmart that might have something worth taking.

And every day, as the refugees run out of gas and food, they get more and more desperate and start shooting. And with every passing day that goes by without you joining the other lemmings, the less likely you are to want to die with them out on the pavement.

The mentality should always be: how can we live here? ...all of us. We are different in our ideas and motivations, and the environment is in constant flux. We adapt, compromise, tolerate, etc... Society has created niches of comfort/turmoil for some, and society can destroy those niches. This is no different than the niches created by nature.

Humanity has suffered great tragedies both natural and constructed. Our desires for technology, space exploration, knowledge, etc...will no doubt have a human cost measured by our ignorance and arrogance. How much of this is the human condition - a path we are destined to take?

You know i would get ready by not only building your own bomb shelter/fallout shelter, but also by building your own nuclear warheads, which is actually much easier to do than physicists would like you to believe, just go and get some er... heavy radioactive elements, google the rest

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